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Command, Control, and Conquer

Back in the ’90s, there was a game released called Command and Conquer, a strategic game whereby you had to manage resources, build, train and mobilise armies and conquer the neighbouring armies. It was a classic that spawned many spin-offs, sequels and addons for decades. What struck me about it though was how multi-skilled you had to be, especially in the later levels.

You couldn’t just be an excellent Field Marshall as you also had to manage resources, cash and other materials to create your buildings and structures that allowed you to create your army in the first place. You had to know logistics, how long something would take to build, train and mobilise, look into the future at new locations for better access to materials, and also have plans in place if the enemy attacked before you were ready.

Essentially, you were skipping from one crisis to the next, finely balancing between success and crashing failure. It sounds a lot like any modern-day incident management situation really.

In this week’s The Lost CISO (season 2), I take a quick look at incident management and highlight four key points to remember during an incident. In case you haven’t seen it yet. here it:

The bottom line is that, much like in the Command & Conquer game, you could plan ahead what you were doing because the environment was constantly changing, the unknowns were stubbornly remaining unknowns and the literal (in the case of the game) fog of war meant you can’t see more than just a few steps ahead. There are though some keys to success.

The first key point is that having a plan is all well and good, but as my military friend regularly tell me;

no plan survives contact with the enemy

Why? Because the enemy much like life does random, unexpected and painful things on a regular basis. Incidents have a habit of doing the same thing, so if your plan is rigid, overly explicit and has little room to ad-lib or manoeuvre in, it will fail.

Therefore, my approach has always been to build any kind of plan around four simple areas:

Command

Control

Communication

Collaboration

In other words, decide who is in charge, decide who is responsible for what areas, ensure everyone knows how to talk to each other, ensure everyone works openly and honestly with everyone else. There may be some other details in there as well, but really, if you have these four areas covered your plans will remain flexible and effective, and you may find yourself being able to close incidents more quickly and efficiently.

With all that extra time on your hands, you can then spend some time basking under the Tiberian sun.